Future-proof your finances with the PLAN with CPF dashboard

Big life decisions often start with a simple but weighty question: Can I afford this—now and later? Whether it’s buying your first home, planning for a secure retirement, or ensuring you have enough to pay for health insurance in your later years, the decisions themselves can feel overwhelming. But in Singapore, what makes them especially complex isn’t just the cost—it’s the trade-offs. How much should you allocate toward a home without compromising your retirement savings? Are your healthcare premiums manageable now, but also sustainable as you age? Will your CPF payouts be enough for the lifestyle you envision?

To help Singaporeans navigate these pivotal financial crossroads, the CPF Board has developed PLAN with CPF—a personalized dashboard designed to simplify long-term planning. With a secure login via Singpass, the dashboard aggregates your CPF savings, financial milestones, and goals into one accessible platform. But more than just a tracker, it functions as a proactive guide. It helps you explore key financial planning areas—such as retirement, housing, healthcare, and insurance—with planners and resources tailored to your current life stage.

For busy professionals juggling short-term expenses and long-term goals, this dashboard is a quiet but powerful ally. It turns financial ambiguity into structured awareness, guiding you not only on what you can afford now, but also on how today’s decisions shape tomorrow’s options.

It’s easy to delay financial planning when you're managing immediate expenses like rent, bills, or childcare. But life doesn’t wait for the "perfect" time. Many financial choices carry long-term consequences that only become visible years later—often when the flexibility to course-correct has narrowed.

In Singapore’s context, this is particularly true because your CPF is not just a retirement fund—it’s also used for housing and healthcare. That makes every big financial milestone interconnected. Using too much of your CPF for your mortgage could reduce your future payouts. Delaying health insurance decisions might result in higher premiums later when you need coverage most. And assuming your retirement will sort itself out because you’ve made basic contributions often ignores inflation, healthcare inflation, and lifestyle needs that go beyond minimum payouts.

The PLAN with CPF dashboard helps you avoid blind spots. It brings together three essential tools—the Home Purchase Planner, the Health Insurance Planner, and the Retirement Payout Planner—so you can understand how each financial choice impacts the others. Let’s walk through how each one helps create clarity and confidence.

For most Singaporeans, buying a home is the largest financial decision they'll make. And with CPF playing a key role in home financing, it’s not just about whether you can afford the monthly instalments—it’s about whether that affordability stretches across your full life span.

The Home Purchase Planner in your PLAN with CPF dashboard goes beyond a typical mortgage calculator. It doesn’t just tell you how much you can borrow—it projects how using your CPF Ordinary Account (OA) for housing affects your future retirement savings. This is a step many buyers overlook.

Let’s say you’re 35 and plan to use your CPF to fund your flat purchase and monthly repayments. On paper, the numbers may seem manageable. But what the planner does is show you how much CPF balance you’ll have left after those payments—and how that balance would grow if left untouched. If your housing costs eat significantly into your OA contributions, you may need to consider whether topping up your Special Account or adjusting your housing budget makes more sense in the long term.

The tool also considers joint purchases with a spouse and factors in property type, loan tenure, and expected resale value. This allows you to visualize not just the upfront affordability, but the downstream trade-offs between home ownership and retirement adequacy.

In short, you’re not just deciding if you can afford the property—you’re learning what it costs you later to afford it now.

Health insurance is often misunderstood as a once-and-done purchase. You sign up when you’re younger, premiums are low, and it feels like you’ve checked off an important box. But the real challenge arises 20 or 30 years later, when premiums for Integrated Shield Plans (IPs) can rise steeply—especially if you’re no longer earning active income.

The Health Insurance Planner on the PLAN with CPF dashboard gives you a 30-year view of your insurance costs. It shows how your premiums are likely to increase with age, what portion can be paid using MediSave, and what needs to be paid in cash. That distinction is important. Many people assume MediSave will cover most of their IP premiums throughout life—but in reality, MediSave usage is subject to withdrawal limits that may fall short as premiums increase.

By comparing your current IP with other plans in the market, the planner helps you assess not just your protection level but also your sustainability. For example, if your current plan includes extensive private hospital coverage but you intend to use public hospital services in retirement, you might be overpaying today—and setting yourself up for higher out-of-pocket costs later.

This planner also forces a simple but powerful question: Are you buying protection you won’t be able to maintain? Because if the premiums become unaffordable in your 70s or 80s, you may need to reduce coverage at precisely the stage in life when healthcare costs spike.

Retirement planning isn’t just about accumulating a lump sum—it’s about understanding what monthly payouts you’ll receive, and whether that amount aligns with your expected living expenses. The Retirement Payout Planner on the PLAN with CPF dashboard helps you reverse-engineer this.

You start by setting a desired payout amount—say, $2,000 a month. The planner then evaluates whether your CPF savings are on track to support that, and if not, suggests practical adjustments. This may include topping up your CPF Special Account, delaying payout start age to benefit from higher monthly amounts, or adjusting your lifestyle assumptions.

Crucially, the planner takes into account the expected CPF LIFE payouts, inflation-adjusted projections, and potential changes to your income or employment over time. This is important because many people plan based on static assumptions—assuming their income, spending, or savings rate will stay constant. In reality, careers evolve, caregiving duties emerge, and market cycles affect cash flow.

By helping you see where your retirement plan stands today, the dashboard gives you time to make incremental changes. That’s the goal—not a radical financial overhaul, but small, intentional steps that compound into security.

The PLAN with CPF dashboard doesn’t stop at calculators and projections. It also curates learning resources aligned with your current planning area. If you're early in your career, you’ll find CPF explainer articles and tips on compound interest. If you're evaluating a home purchase, you can explore guides on budgeting, housing grants, and managing joint ownership.

This matters because financial planning isn't a one-size-fits-all activity. A 28-year-old with no dependents has different concerns from a 45-year-old juggling education costs and aging parent care. By tailoring the content you see based on your planner usage and life stage, the dashboard removes the noise and surfaces the most relevant advice.

This integration of planners and content allows users to move seamlessly from decision-making tools to contextual guidance. You don’t just see what your housing budget looks like—you also learn how to think about home loans, how much buffer to keep, and what not to overlook when budgeting for renovations. In that sense, the dashboard becomes less of a tool and more of a learning partner.

While CPF plays a central role in long-term planning, it’s not the whole picture. That’s why the Financial Fitness Beyond CPF questionnaire, developed in collaboration with MoneySense and based on MAS’s Basic Financial Planning Guide, adds important context.

This self-assessment covers emergency savings, insurance coverage, investment readiness, and estate planning. It doesn’t require detailed input—just honest answers about your financial habits and current preparedness. Based on your responses, it surfaces practical tips tailored to your circumstances.

For example, if you indicate that you don’t have three to six months’ worth of emergency savings, the dashboard might highlight resources or tools to help you build that cushion. If you’re over-relying on CPF for retirement with no private investments, it may suggest strategies to diversify.

The point isn’t to trigger anxiety—but to foster awareness. Because while CPF offers a strong foundation, resilience often comes from broader financial literacy and intentional planning outside the system.

You might be thinking: “I’m already contributing to CPF. I’ve got some savings. Why do I need another tool?”

The answer lies in precision. Most financial mistakes aren’t due to laziness—they’re due to unexamined assumptions. People assume their CPF payouts will be enough, only to find out later that they didn’t factor in inflation or rising healthcare costs. Others believe their insurance coverage is adequate, but haven’t stress-tested that assumption against life expectancy or MediSave withdrawal caps.

The PLAN with CPF dashboard replaces guesswork with clarity. And it does so without trying to sell you a product, a premium tier, or a financial package. It’s a public resource designed to empower you—not overwhelm you.

Think of it as your financial compass. You don’t have to check it every day. But when you reach a milestone—be it a salary jump, property decision, or change in family circumstances—it helps you recalibrate. And recalibration, more than optimization, is the heart of sustainable financial planning.

One of the most comforting aspects of the PLAN with CPF dashboard is its quiet, no-pressure design. It doesn’t prompt you to overhaul your finances in one sitting. Instead, it gives you a structured way to engage with your financial life gradually—through seasons, transitions, and decisions.

Whether you log in to explore a housing budget, evaluate your insurance sustainability, or project your retirement payouts, each action builds awareness. And that awareness is what separates reactive money decisions from purposeful ones. So if you’ve been meaning to “start planning,” but haven’t known where or how—this dashboard is a practical, private place to begin.

Not tomorrow. Not when life slows down.

Now.

Because when it comes to financial readiness, clarity isn’t a luxury. It’s a strategy.